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A melon is any of many Cucurbitaceae plants having sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The term “melon” can be used to describe both the plant and the fruit. A melon is a kind of berry, especially a “pepo” in horticulture. The word melon comes from the Latin melopepo, which is a latinization of the Greek term (mlopepn), which means “melon,” and is made up of the words (mlon), “apple, treefruit (of any sort),” and (pepn), which means “a kind of gourd or melon.” Many distinct cultivars, notably of cantaloupes, have been developed.

Melons are said to have originated in Africa or the hot valleys of Southwest Asia, particularly Iran and India, from whence they spread to Europe near the end of the Western Roman Empire. The ancient Egyptians are known to have cultivated melons. Melons were initially imported to Europe by the Nuragic civilisation of Sardinia during the Bronze Age, according to recent finds of melon seeds dated between 1350 and 1120 BC in Nuragic sacred wells.

Melons were one of the first plants to be domesticated in the Old World and one of the first agricultural species transported to the New World by Europeans. Honeydew and casaba melons were grown by early European immigrants in the New World as early as the 1600s.

Many Native American tribes in New Mexico, including the Acoma, Cochiti, Isleta, Navajo, Santo Domingo, and San Felipe, have a long heritage of cultivating their distinctive melon cultivars, descended from Spanish-introduced melons. Efforts have been undertaken by organizations such as Native Seeds/SEARCH to collect and conserve these and other heritage seeds.

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